If God is all powerful, then he would assume the most powerful state. So, for instance, he wouldn’t age because that would be a weakness of god. Anselm argues that in order to assume the most powerful state of being, a thing must exist. The argument centred on the thought that a thing that exists is greater than a thing that does not. Things that exist purely in our minds cannot effect the real world unless they work through us, thus making us more powerful.
Many, if not most, Christians would argue that they believe the second statement and that morality depends entirely on God as he is omnipotent and omnibenevolant and so is the source of goodness. One reason why atheists would argue that Christians cannot follow any other statement is because if morality was grounded if something other than God, it means that atheists could do morally good actions consciously, without requiring religious faith, and could perhaps be more morally good than a Christian, making belief in or obedience to God pointless. Therefore, theists need to claim that morality can only be understood through God because what He commands is good, to set them apart from and above the rest of society in
Thus, he believes there is no reason why should you live a moral life rather than for one's self. Fidley asks Seltzer one last question, “what motivation for adopting the moral point of view can you possibly offer without a belief in God and immorality?” which leads us to this quote, “When religion tells us that there is nothing more we can say about morality than that we can’t see the reasons for it, but do it if you know what’s good for you, then I do condemn it. We can do better than that. We can become moral grown-ups. And if there were a God, surely he would approve”.
Euthyphro responds by insisting that holiness is what is approved or loved by the Gods; where impiety is whatever is disapproved of by the Gods. However, as Socrates points out, the question poses a dilemma for those who believe in certain Gods. “And what is loved by the gods appears also to be hated by them”(13). In essence, each person along with each God has their own belief. This results in people believing in a certain God and only that God, for the other Gods don’t appeal real to them.
The ontological argument is further defined as analytic, which means when you look at the word (which in this case is God) and you already know what it means. In Proslogion, St Anselm uses a phrase to define God. This phrase is “that than which a greater cannot be thought”. He uses this phrase because he believes God to be the greatest being ever, and the being which the best at absolutely everything. Also he believes that if you asked someone who doesn’t believe in God what their definition of God was, then it would also be something along the lines of this.
However, this was seen as a weak, invalid argument to Anselm. Anselm said that Gaunilo’s argument is illogical because God has a different kind of existence. Anselm’s first argument was that an island can always be made greater (for example another tree or beach), but God cannot be made any better because he already has those characteristics included. Anselm’s second argument was that an island is not the greatest thing conceivable, there are
“The direction which I am motivated to follow in an effort to meet my needs depends neither on the needs nor on the motivational energy but rather on what I think will meet those needs” (Crabb, 1977). Because men fall short of the glory of God, their drive may be aimed in the wrong direction. Crabb states that the only true satisfying goal is God. No matter what the drive behind the goal, without God, there is no true achievement. Different psychological problems can arise if a client is reaching for a goal that does not involve God.
Faith is what truly kills doubt. To have faith is a great thing because it helps us believe in a religion, without it people would not have religions. The foundation for religion is faith, if everything was proven then we would not need religion, but science cannot answer everything. Anyone who is mentally stable and can think for themselves knows that science cannot answer all of life’s questions and it is based on theories that cannot be proven. Bill Maher had the audacity to say “religion is a neurological disorder”.
Descartes' argument in the Meditations is circular. Discuss. In trying to prove the existence of God, Descartes will, of course, have to rely on what he can clearly and distinctly perceive, because this is the only way he can know anything. However, Descartes also needs to prove that God exists for us to know what we clearly and distinctly perceive. This leads to the famous objection that he uses the existence of God to establish his doctrine of clear and distinct ideas, and that he uses his doctrine of clear and distinct ideas to establish the existence of God: his argument is circular.
Opinion Paper on St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica In the three Summa Theologica readings, Thomas Aquinas makes arguments about the existence of god, whether it can be demonstrated that god exists, and finally, whether the existence of god can be self-evident. In all three of these stories, Aquinas shows both the yes and no sides of the arguments. In one of the readings about whether God exists, Aquinas shows five reasons behind why he believes God does exist. I definitely agree with some of Aquinas’ arguments, but there are also some that just do not seem to be backed up completely. In the Whether God Exists article, Mr. Aquinas states, “The existence of God can be proved in five ways”(1).